


Breathing Time Machine (Take You All For A Ride)

by betternovembers



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Flash Forward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:04:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betternovembers/pseuds/betternovembers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's nothing like a dream, everything seems oversaturated and heavy and real. [BBT/Flash Forward crossover, sort of.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**October 5, 2009 - 8:13:43 PM - Monday**

The last time she came over for Thai night, she got dragged into that terrible card game involving Kaa, or Khan, or whatever, but despite her misgivings, it's been a long day at the Cheesecake Factory, and honestly, she just wants Leonard to cuddle her and maybe rub her lower back a little. Of course, as soon as she's in the boys' apartment, Sheldon is ignoring her, Howard is... being Howard, and Raj is sitting on the floor, lips pressed tightly together, left hand caught in Howard's slacks as he tugs to pass along each message. Penny has always secretly wondered if there's something between Wolowitz and Koothrappali, but she's never had the guts nor the appropriate, gay-friendly location to discuss how friends touch friends and if perhaps anatomical reference charts are needed to demonstrate the general locales of inappropriate touching. And she really, _really_ does not want to get into what boys can do with other boys, so she's just going to let them figure it out on their own.

Lately, after the whole Wil Wheaton thing (Leonard had told her the story, which he had heard from Raj, and his neck was at the approximate angle of "I find this amusing because I secretly enjoy the humiliation of others (particularly Sheldon)" or about 40 degrees) Sheldon seemed to have given up the ghost. He had just taken the styrofoam container from Leonard silently, and settled a little further into his spot on the coach. It was unthinkable, really. Sure, Leonard had managed to acquire his meal in the exact manner Sheldon preferred, but Sheldon hadn't even verified the source of his condiments.

She can't help but shoot worried glances at him for the rest of the night. The rest of the boys don't notice (or maybe they're even secretly relieved?) that Sheldon is being remarkably quiet, and doesn't put even put up a fight when she asks to watch House during dinner, even though she knows he considers it a blight on the fictional legacy of Sherlock Holmes. Howard babbles during the commercials about how he'd let Thirteen treat him any day of the week, and it's actually sort of soothing to have some slice of normalcy happening, even if it's Howard being gross.

She turns down Leonard's unspoken request for her to stay over by kissing him on his forehead, and claiming laundry. He's upset, well, not quite that, but it's definitely more than disappointment on his face.

Maybe he should be upset. When she's back in her apartment, she gets into bed even though she's not tired. And anyway, she's saving her laundry for Saturday night.

 

**October 6, 2009 - 11:00:30 AM - Tuesday / April 29, 2010 - 10:00:00 PM - Thursday**

It's nothing like a dream, everything seems oversaturated and heavy and real. She feels awake. She is awake. She's in bed, curled on her side, the plaid comforter pulled up to her neck, sliding bare legs back and forth across the cool sheets. Pushing her face into the pillow and breathing in the smell of soap and paper and something unmistakably boy. There's the warm press of his body flush behind hers, the soft drag of a hand creeping up her side, and there, right at the junction of her neck and shoulder, a kiss so light she barely feels it.

"Once again, I must commend you on your victory tonight. It was earned, even if Wolowitz was distracted and has never quite grasped the intricacy of the new stealth-based mechanics of ODST in the first place," Sheldon says, while his hand moves from her side so he can wrap his arm around her. She presses back against his chest, feeling how warm he is. He's still slightly damp from his nightly shower, and where his fingertips press against her skin she can feel the wrinkles. His voice is quiet and amused, and it doesn't really sound like he is saying the words grudgingly. But there's something off about it anyway.

"Thank you, sweetie." She turns her head a bit, feels his leg slip in between hers, and her toes catch in flannel. "Are you ok?"

She can feel him breath in, breath out before he answers. "Fine, Penny. I am fine. It's just that right now everything seems overly familiar."

She knows the feeling. "In a bad way?"

He doesn't answer at that moment, instead pulling away so he has room to maneuver her onto her back, and it _is_ familiar, but in the best possible way when he covers her body with his, when he braces himself on one arm and uses his other hand to discover that she's only wearing one of his t-shirts and that's it, when they're able to stop kissing long enough so she can pull the sleeves of his pajama top off one arm, then the other.

While his mouth is occupied against her collarbone, she runs her hands through his still-damp hair, leans in and murmurs, "We have done this before, you know. A few times now, even." Angles her head and ghosts her lips across the shell of his ear. He reacts pretty much exactly how she expects he will, by correcting her. But now, she's got him trained enough to multitask while he's going over her mistakes and fixing them in his own way. He's far more gentle about it. He's also in the middle of getting her naked, which is really a plus.

"Penny, as you are well aware, we have now--"

She interjects with, "had sex, Sheldon, we have had sex--"

And here is the best part of having sex with Dr. Sheldon Cooper, holder of 2 doctorates and some insane number of awards and and foremost in the field of lacking a whole bevy of social graces, is that instead of becoming perturbed at her interruption, he allows it to flow smoothly into his own speech, even takes the chance while she's talking to flip them over so she's straddling his waist, hands on his bare chest, his long fingers splayed across her hip bones. He nods vaguely at her colloquialism, then continues, "--yes, Penny, we have had sex eleven times now, twelve if you include what it is obviously about to take place, not to mention the myriad times you have proceeded to kiss me--"

She doesn't let him finish. She never does, but she knows in a weird, Sheldon-way, he likes it. She kisses him instead, and marvels once again (despite all those myriad times she has kissed him) how he kisses her back. It's not quite as precise as she would have ever predicted, but it's more that, maybe given enough evidence, he has learned to anticipate the exact way she tilts her head, how to sweep his tongue into her mouth, and take control. There's cool air against her back, and his hands are confident, perfect, almost exactly where she wants them to be.

"You're still wearing pants, Dr. Cooper." She's created a tiny world with her hair as she leans over him, so it's only the two of them, a curtain of blonde blocking out the rest of the world and its problems. He's looking at her like she's the answer to life, the universe, everything, as she reaches for the waistband of his Thursday pajamas. She resolves, at that moment, to create a mental list of things she loves about Sheldon, and at the top is his complete inability to hide what he's thinking. Right under that is the fact that even though she's completely naked, his eyes are still latched onto hers. He is a total gentleman, as always, despite the fact that this is now at least the twelfth time he has seen her naked.

She manages to get his pajama bottoms off and pushed into a corner underneath the covers, leans back in and kisses him in the spots that make him shudder: under his left ear, against his ribs, just above the waistband of his briefs. She puts her mouth over his cock, licks a line over cotton and laughs a little when his hips arch off the bed. Every time is like the first time, and she can't help but think, he is entirely hers, she has defined every action he takes, every reaction he makes when her lips or her hands touch him. Brave new frontiers, brave new worlds, and every one contains one Sheldon, one Penny, orbiting each other, galaxies colliding, constellations rearranging around the two of them.

She kinda likes how she thinks that way now, even if she can't say any of it out loud. Still, it's nice.

The brief moment of distraction is enough to let Sheldon take the advantage back, and he is getting really, really good at this. Pretty quickly, he has her on her back and he's in between her thighs, and there's a lot happening, and his mouth seems to be everywhere, on her neck, teeth tugging at her nipple, following it with his tongue. He pays special attention to her belly button, the spot at her hip bone that if he scrapes his teeth --oh, just like that, perfect -- and this time he's the one pinning her back on the bed when she tries to get closer. He looks up at her then, sees she's fisted both hands into the sheets, and smirks, goddamn him, but it only lasts a second before he puts one of his arms across her hips and uses the other to push open her legs and then his tongue is tracing numbers against her clit and she gives up any attempt at rational thought or even trying to follow whatever equation he's picked out tonight. She's trying to be quiet, really, but when he stops for a minute and keeps his mouth close enough that she can feel every breath, and waits, waits, she can't help but groan in frustration and try to roll her hips despite the steadying weight of his arm, and that's when the hand that was on her thigh starts to move and and _and_\--

 

**October 6, 2009 - 11:02:17 AM - Tuesday**

She wakes up. The first real thought Penny has is, "Why am I on the floor?" It's completely reasonable, as not only as she on the floor, but she's sprawled on her stomach, her knees and hands aching a little, her cheek resting on a pile of dirty clothes. Take that Sheldon.

Sheldon. Sex. _Sex_ with _Sheldon_. Holy shit, what was _that_.

She manages to push herself up into a sitting position, and after she shakes her head a little, to try and erase that disturbingly clear... whatever, from her brain, that's when she hears the sirens. A whole lot of sirens.


	2. Chapter 2

**October 6, 2009 - 11:06:34 AM - Tuesday**

"Penny? PENNY? Can you -- are you there? Are you ok?"

She breathes for what feels like the first time in days, but it hasn't even been five minutes since she woke up and looked outside, saw the fires, the accidents, tried to turn the television on only to see the emergency broadcast system (she didn't even know that still existed).

"Leonard! Thank god, are you ok? Are you all ok?" The connection is terrible, and it sounds like Leonard is running, and there's fire alarms in the background, and something is happening, but she can't tell and really, what the _actual fuck_ is going on.

"I'm fine, Sheldon and Raj are with me, but we can't get to Howard's office. There's a chemical fire in one of the labs, and we can't get to Howard--" Leonard sounds completely frantic, the phone is muffled as he shouts instructions for Raj to double back and look for a fire extinguisher, then he's back, but only to say, "Penny, I have to-- just stay safe, I'll call again soon."

There are twenty other things she could be doing, she needs to call her family, see if they're ok, try and see what exactly just happened, because one minute she's having a dream about sexy times with Sheldon and the next she wakes up and it seems to be chaos and destruction everywhere. Maybe it's a sign she should never date Sheldon? She pushes that train of thought of her head, because it's an emergency, and actually, Sheldon's really the one she wishes she had here with her. He has duffel bags and binders with specific plans about what to do during this sort of thing. Does this even qualify as an apocalypse? Whatever, she's not about to go brave the streets and try and find canned peaches that they can live off of for three weeks if they have to, so instead she curls back up on her bed, and dials the number home.

 

**October 8, 2009 - 9:12:04 PM - Thursday**

They had canceled Halo night by a pretty easy unanimous decision. It's Leonard's turn to sit with Howard, and Sheldon has set up camp in his room with his whiteboards (she's not really sure if he's hiding from her or actually working, but either way, she's barely seen him over the last 48 hours), so that leaves her and Raj, and it's another pretty easy decision that leads to their DVDs and drinks night. She's pulled down the liquor bottles and set up the makeshift bar at her kitchen counter again, and they've already made it about halfway into the bottle of rum before Raj even picks out what movie to watch. They're both in their own little worlds, and Raj isn't saying much, although he is saying please and thank you every time she goes to make another strong Captain and Coke and she just starts taking his empty glass with her.

He's got the DVD in the player, and she can't help but smile a little when the menus for _Across the Universe_ start. No matter what the past couple of days have been like, with the accidents and the flashes, and Howard, at least there's the Beatles and a romantic movie to watch at the end of the day. She leans against Raj's shoulder a little when he presses play, and after he puts the remote down on the arm of her sofa, he hesitantly takes her left hand in his right.

It's all going to be alright. It has to be.

 

**December 19, 2009 - 12:35:32 AM - Saturday**

The annual Caltech holiday party is pretty subdued, for obvious reasons. The plaque and fountain for those lost in the fire the day of the flash forwards was a nice touch though, or at least Penny thought so. Sheldon found it a waste of university resources, but she had managed to shush him before he could say anything to Gablehouser's replacement. Howard walking in under his own power (even if he was leaning on Raj pretty heavily) had gotten a pretty heavy round of applause, and had managed to pick up the mood of the place fairly decently. After that, it was pretty much a mindless few hours of standing around with the boys, and a few quick bouts of mingling that mostly just resulted in awkward pauses and people peering at Sheldon like they had to figure him out all over again.

Now that they're back in Penny's apartment, just the two of them, Sheldon has (_thank the lord above for small miracles_) taken off his plaid blazer, leaving him in his simple white dress shirt and tie, which he is currently in the middle of yanking at the knot with some frustration. She catches him out of the corner of her eye, and can't quite hide the smile. "Sweetie, let me take care of that for you."

He sighs, but acquiesces and his hands drop to his sides. This thing between them is still a little weird, brand new, and Sheldon is still rough around the edges in terms of how much he likes to be touched. She takes him in as she crosses back across the apartment to help him, tie askew, sleeves rolled up just below his elbows, hair a little mussed. When she takes his tie in her hands, she doesn't loosen it right away, but instead she straightens it, and uses it to pull his head down to where she can touch her lips to his in a soft kiss. He doesn't protest, and she can feel his lips exerting the tiniest amount of force back against hers. She lets the moment play out, feeling the warmth of his chest against her fingers, but she doesn't push him either. So it's a bit of a surprise when his hand reaches up, finds a place at her jaw and tilts her head, just so, and then Sheldon's lips part against hers and then, _this is it_, here is their future for the first time. She's not sure how much of it is instinct and how much of it he knows from the flash forward, but it doesn't really matter, she supposes, not in the long run. They'll get there eventually, inevitably.

She's got one hand clutching his tie, and she's impressing herself with her ability to resist using the free one to start pulling his tucked shirt out of his pants, or really, any number of inappropriate things she could be doing right now. She's letting Sheldon set the pace. Well, mostly.

If her hand manages to tug just enough shirt loose so she can rest her hand directly on his back, well, she can't be blamed for that.

 

**October 13, 2009 - 6:03:54 PM - Tuesday**

"OK, Sheldon, I've given you a week to wrap your beautiful mind around what you saw, but seriously, we have to talk about it. You can't avoid me forever. If nothing else we're going to be doing it by April."

This is probably not the approach she should be taking, now that she thinks about it.

The absolute silence coming from the other side of Sheldon's bedroom door agrees. Yep, worst plan ever.

 

**October 15, 2009 - 10:05:45 PM - Thursday**

Raj follows her out of the boys apartment, and before she manages to open her apartment door, taps her on the shoulder and makes the universal gesture for tossing one back.

"Sure Raj. Come in."

She gets them both a beer from the fridge, and lets him drink.

"So you and Sheldon, huh?"

Damn him.

"So you and Howard, huh?"

He smiles, and she can't help but laugh. What a pair they make.

"Touché, Penny. Touché."

 

**December 19, 2009 - 12:55:41 AM - Saturday**

Sheldon's insisted that if he's spending the night, that he's at least going to go back and get his Friday night pajamas, even if it now technically it is Saturday. It would be pointless to fight him over it, so she just kisses him on the cheek, and tells him she'll go get in bed, just to lock the door after himself when he gets back. Any other guy, they'd read that as a sign, but it's kind of nice knowing that she's probably just going to cuddle with him, if he can actually even manage that.

Penny's pretty impressed when he's back under ten minutes. He definitely gave up the nighttime shower to come back over, and when he crawls into bed but sort of awkwardly pauses, like he's not sure where to go or if he's suppose to hold her, she leans in and kisses him again and they both taste like toothpaste, although his is mint and hers is cinnamon. After that he settles on his back, and lets her put her head on his shoulder, figures out where his arm is suppose to go. He's in the full button-down set, of course, but she worms her fingers in between buttons and rests them above his heartbeat.

"Penny?"

"Yeah, Sheldon?"

"This is much more comfortable than I would have expected."

"I knew you could hack it." She presses her lips just under his jaw, then under his left ear, and she feels his chest suck in a deep breathe of air, and it hits her -- the flash, it's one of his spots. The ones she can use to turn him boneless and pliant.

"Sheldon?"

"Yes, Penny."

"If you could change the future... our future, would you?"

"There have been unsubstantiated rumors that that is indeed possible now."

"Sheldon, I didn't ask you if-- I don't know if it's possible or not. If it is possible, would you do it?"

"We change the future every day, Penny. I can't anticipate every consequence of the actions I take each day. But you wish to determine if I would change a hypothetical future in which we are together, or perhaps you are worrying if I am only here right now because of the fact I have seen this future for myself, and predict it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy?"

She starts to back-pedal, she didn't it mean it like _that_. The way he says it she sounds like doubts everything they're basing this on.

"I wouldn't change it, Penny. I won't." His tone is definitive, pretty much _this conversation has no more value to me_ written all over it, but his hand comes up and takes hers, holds it to his chest, and she's pretty sure this is the moment she falls in love with him.

  
[To (eventually) be continued...]


End file.
